1. Stop comparing yourself with others
Comparing yourself with others won’t do you any good. You will either feel proud when you are above, or feel jealous and frustrated when you are below. None of them brings true happiness. So stop comparing yourself with others and simply be your best.
2. Count your blessings
There are so many things we should be grateful for, but we often forget them. When you realize how blessed you are, you will certainly be happier.
We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.
Frederick Keonig
You can start with some simple things we take for granted.
3. Find your inner voice
To find true happiness, you must first find your inner voice. Slow down and take some quiet time for soul searching. What will make your life meaningful? What is true happiness for you? By knowing what your heart says, it will be easier for you to align with it.
4. Reconnect with your childhood dreams
Your childhood dreams can give you clues about your true calling. So discover them and reconnect with them. Get them back into your life. Childhood dreams are important, which is why Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture is entitled Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.
5. Help someone
Giving is an essential key to happiness. While we often think that we will be happier when we receive, the truth is we are happier when we give. This is also one of the most difficult things to apply.
You can apply this by finding someone in need and lending a helping hand. The person could be your family, friend, or even a stranger. You could also donate to a charity.
Happiness is like a kiss…you must share it to enjoy it.
Unknown
6. Spend more quality time with your loved ones
Relationships give us happiness more than any material in the world. So spend more quality time with your loved ones. In such moments, be sure that you devote your attention to them. Divided attention (with your work, for example) will decrease the quality of the time.
There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.
George Sand
7. Apply the five languages of love
Love is an important way to happiness, and the five languages of love is a helpful concept to help you apply love. By understanding yours and others’ languages of love, you will be able to build better relationships.
8. Appreciate nature
The beauty of the nature can give you peace. Go out and see how beautiful the nature is. Watch how the birds sing and the sun shines, and let you be happy once again.
9. Pray or meditate
This is one of the most effective ways to calm your mind and get inner happiness. When you feel overwhelmed, a session of praying or meditation could help you clear your mind.
10. Know yourself
You will be happier if you understand who you are. Taking personality tests or drawing a simple life map could help you recognize who you are.
11. Say thank you
Sometimes we are so accustomed to people around us that we forget to thank to them. So take a little time to do that.
12. Smile
Smiling is a very simple thing to do, and yet it has great effect. There mere act of smiling can brighten your otherwise dark day.
13. Listen more than you speak
You will feel happier not only by understanding yourself, but also by understanding the people around you. One simple way to do that is by listening more than you speak. Try to understand what the other person means before speaking out your thoughts.
14. Stop judging others
Judging others will give you bad feeling toward them and there’s nothing good about that. Instead, you should look at the positive side of them. Sometimes it’s easier to see the others’ weaknesses, but looking at the positive side will brighten their day and your day.
15. Focus on what you can control
Trying to change things beyond your control will only frustrate you. Recognize what you can and can’t control, and focus solely on the things you can control. For instance, you can’t change how people around you behave, but you can change yours. So focus on changing your own behavior instead of changing theirs.
There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.
Epictetus
16. Forgive yourself
Have you done mistakes in the past? We could be intimidated by our past mistakes that we can no longer live to our full potential. But you aren’t perfect, and neither is anyone else. So forgive yourself and release the burden.
17. Forgive others
Besides forgiving yourself, you should also forgive other people who did wrong to you. Not forgiving them will only hurt you. Again, you should release the burden so that you can find happiness.
To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.
Robert Muller
18. Accept yourself
You may have some personality traits that you don’t like. For instance, perhaps you are an introvert and you wish you are an extrovert. Or you wish you were born in a different background. This is one thing you can’t control (see #15), so just accept yourself as you are. You are unique, and that’s something you should be grateful for.
19. Know how to deal with problems
Problems will always come your way, so your happiness depends not on whether or not you have problem, but on how good you deal with them. Knowing how to stay and how to overcome to failure will be helpful.
20. Be a promise keeper
You will find happiness if you stay true to your heart and one way to do that is by being a promise keeper. The more you keep your promise, the more you will be aligned with your conscience and the happier you will be
Daily life can be made happier. It is a matter of choice. It is our attitude that makes us feel happy or unhappy. It is true, we meet all kinds of situations during the day, and some of them may not be conductive to happiness. We can choose to keep thinking about the unhappy events, and we can choose to refuse to think about them, and instead, relish the happy moments. All of us constantly go through various situations and circumstances, but we do not have to let them influence our reactions and feelings.
If we let outer events influence our moods, we become their slaves. We lose our freedom. We let our happiness be determined by outer forces. On the other hand, we can free ourselves from outer influences. We can choose to be happy, and we can do a lot to add happiness to our lives.
What is happiness? It is a feeling of inner peace and satisfaction. It is usually experienced when there are no worries, fears or obsessing thoughts, and this usually happens, when we do something we love to do or when we get, win, gain or achieve something that we value. It seems to be the outcome of positive events, but it actually comes from the inside, triggered by outer events.
For most people happiness seems fleeting, because they let changing outer circumstances affect it. One of the best ways to keep it, is by gaining inner peace through daily meditation. As the mind becomes more peaceful, it becomes easier to choose the happiness habit.
Tips for increasing happiness in daily life:
1) Endeavor to change the way you look at things. Always look at the bright side. The mind may drag you to think about negativity and difficulties. Don't let it. Look at the good and positive side of every situation.
2) Think of solutions, not problems.
3) Listen to relaxing, uplifting music.
4) Watch funny comedies that make you laugh.
5) Each day, devote some time to reading a few pages of an inspiring book or article.
6) Watch your thoughts. Whenever you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts, start thinking of pleasant things.
7) Always look at what you have done and not at what you haven't.
Sometimes you may begin the day with the desire to accomplish several objectives. At the end of the day you might feel frustrated and unhappy, because you haven't been able to do all of those things.
Look at what you have done, not at what you have not been able to do. You may have accomplished a lot during the day, and yet you let yourself become frustrated, because of some small things that you did not accomplish. You have spent all day successfully carrying out many plans, and instead of feeling happy and satisfied, you look at what was not accomplished and feel unhappy. It is unfair toward yourself.
8) Each day do something good for yourself. It can be something small, such buying a book, eating something you love, watching you favorite program on TV, going to a movie, or just having a stroll on the beach.
9) Each day do at least one act to make others happy. This can be a kind word, helping your colleagues, stopping your car at the crossroad to let people cross, giving your seat in a bus to someone else, or giving a small present to someone you love. The possibilities are infinite. When you make someone happy, you become happy, and then people try to make you happy.
10) Always expect happiness.
11) Do not envy people who are happy. On the contrary, be happy for their happiness.
12) Associate with happy people, and try to learn from them to be happy. Remember, happiness is contagious.
13) Do your best to stay detached, when things do not proceed as intended and desired. Detachment will help you stay calm and control your moods and reactions. Detachment is not indifference. It is the acceptance of the good and the bad and staying balanced. Detachment has much to do with inner peace, and inner peace is conductive to happiness.
14) Smile more often.
Reference : http://www.successconsciousness.com/index_000065.htm
Happiness is a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy.
Black is the color of the night, and of "evil." Black can also be a color of elegance or class (such as a black-tie only event, and black evening gowns.) Black can also represent ideas such as power, sexuality, sophistication, formality, wealth, mystery, fear, evil, unhappiness, depth, style, sadness, remorse, anger, and mourning. Black can also represent a lack of color, the primordial void, emptiness. It can also mean sorrow or mourning, in the Christian tradition of wearing black to funerals.According to Henry Dreyfus, Black, sumi, is the color of mystery and solemnity; the color of the night. Black expresses the depths of the unknown, and encourages the imagination of a different world from that of daylight realities. Used by itself, black can represent bad luck or misfortune.
Black and white stands for mourning and cheerless occasions. For example, traditional garb for a funeral is black and white. Black for the loss, and white for their passing onto the heavens.
Blue is the color of the Virgin Mary, and is associated with girls who have similar pure qualities. In addition, it is the color of water and the sea, with all the symbolic references already discussed for that element - that is, blue usually indicates femininity, life, purity, etc., just as water does.Blue can also symbolize peace, calm, stability, security, loyalty, sky, water, cold, technology, and depression.
According to Henry Dreyfus, indigo blue, ai, mirrors the color of the vast ocean surrounding the Japanese islands. This shade of blue is very commonly seen in Japanese art and clothing.
Brown represents the ideas of earth, hearth, home, the outdoors, comfort, endurance, simplicity, and comfort.
According to Henry Dreyfus, gold, kin, can evoke the sensation of looking upon waving fields of ripened rice stalks. Gold is also associated with royalty. It represents the color of the heavens, and is used to decorate statues of the Buddha and religious temples.
Green can represent nature, the environment, good luck, youth, vigor, jealousy, envy, and misfortune.According to Henry Dreyfus, green, midori is regarded as the color of eternal life, as seen in evergreens which never change their color from season to season. In the word midori, both trees and vegetation are implied. One characteristic of Japanese culture can be found in the fusion of life and nature.
Orange can represent energy, balance, warmth, enthusiasm, flamboyant, and demanding of attention.
The color pink usually serves two purposes. It can be used to show childish innocence, or a characters child-like personality. For example, Mami (the girl at the top of the page with the pink hair), very much wants to remain a child. She gets pleasure out of very simple, and 'childish' things. So, her hair is pink. Even so, Miho-chan also would like to grow up and become an adult woman… but she's also afraid of losing her childhood innocence. It can also be used to show a more flirtatious personality. Pink is normally a color associated with girls and femininity.Pink is considered a color of good health and life - we speak of people being "in the pink" or the "freshness" of a newborn babe.
Lastly, pink is associated with sexuality, and purity. That is, a girl who is a virgin in heart and body. Pink is symbolic of pure love, for example. It is also the color used for sexual advertisements and such, to indicate the purity of the girls.
Purple can represent royalty, spirituality, nobility, ceremony, mysterious, wisdom, enlightenment, cruelty, arrogance, and mourning.
Red can symbolize many things; from blood, to love, to infatuation. Basically red symbolizes strong emotions, or things of strong emotions rather than intellectual ideas. For example, red can symbolize excitement, energy, speed, strength, danger, passion, and aggression.According to Henry Dreyfus, it is popularly felt that red, the color of blood and fire, represents life and vitality. Red also signifies the color of the sun: a symbol of energy, radiating its vitalizing life-force into human beings. Red is also looked upon as a sensual color, and can be associated with man's most profound urges and impulses. Ironically, red cats symbolize bad luck.
According to Henry Dreyfus, the word for red and white, Kohaku, is pronounced as one word in Japanese. Ko means red, while haku translates as white. Their use together immediately signifies happiness and celebration to the Japanese viewer. The combination of red and white in the decorative ornaments used on wedding or engagement presents -noshi or kaishi- has a compelling quality that suggests man's urge to create a bond between his own life and that of the gods. Red and white are also the colors of the uniforms that shrine maidens wear (denoting these colors divine nature.)Red and white are the colors of the Japanese flag; the red signifies the sun.
Silver/Grey symbolizes security, reliability, intelligence, staid, modesty, maturity, conservative, old age, sadness, and boring.
White is a sacred and pure color. It's the color of angles and gods, as the color reflects that which is sacred and pure. It is also the color of doctors, nurses, and others in the health profession, as well as cleanliness. In fact, the Japanese refer to nurses as "Angels in White".White can also represent reverence, purity, simplicity, peach, humility, youth, winter, snow, good, cold, clinical, and sterile.
Yellow can symbolize joy, happiness, optimism, idealism, gold, dishonesty, cowardice, deceit, illness, and hazard.
